Broadening Searches
Sometimes a simple search produces a disappointing results list. The query may
not locate any matching documents, the results list may be too short, or the
documents in the results list may not contain the information you are looking
for. In these instances, you may need to broaden your search in order to retrieve
a more promising results list.
OR Operator
If your simple search has not produced a useful results list, you may have
used the wrong term in your query. To increase the chances of finding a document
that matches your query, you can use the OR operator with many synonymous or
closely related terms. For example, if you want to retrieve documents concerning
seafood, enter this query:
The OR operator finds pages that match at least one the terms in the query. You may find documents that match crab, but not lobster or shrimp. The pages may also contain more than one term.
Tip
The OR operator is also a good way to search through collections that contain documents written either in US or UK English.
For example, the following string finds pages that match either the word behavior or the word behaviour.
